Mindful Eats

Local Winter Seasonal Foods

Paffenroth Farms stand at Union Square Greenmarket, NYC, 1/30/10

Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. ~Henry David Thoreau

MindfulEats is celebrating our first year anniversary, and we are very grateful to have you with us. We were founded last January during a particularly inspirational time - New Year Resolutions were swirling, Obama had just been inaugurated and the Steelers were on the way to the Super Bowl. 

It was also the middle of winter, and food choices were more limited than during the summer. Root vegetables dominated over fruit. If you haven't noticed a difference, you probably live in a warm and sunny area. Those of us in cold, wintry climates are fortunate that we can take advantage of delicious seasonal specialties. The interest in local foods seem to be increasing (yay!) and we've recently fielded several questions on what's in season - so Bill, Jon and Kaitlyn, this post is for you.  

It's possible to deny winter with food that's been shipped from warmer areas, but that stuff isn't great. It was picked days before it had a chance to ripen naturally, and it's been sitting around for a while. It also cost a lot of carbon to ship. Use it as a supplement to the bonanza of hearty winter foods easily available: cabbage, potatoes, turnips, parsnips, brussel sprouts, dried beans, eggs, meat. There may not be as wide a selection as the summer, but this is definitely a season to take advantage of. (And do it while you can - the winter season is short!) Eating seasonally provides you with:

• Food that makes sense. It's cold out there, and filling your tummy with roasted sweet potatoes and a heart-warming stew or cassoulet makes more sense than eating a tomato and mozzarella sandwich with strawberries. You'll be in sync with nature!
• Cheaper and tastier food. Produce that's in season and local tastes better. Parsnips and turnips in the NYC greenmarket are $1 a pound. That's a lot less than the small bundles of spinach from California.

The hardest thing about adding seasonal foods is knowing what's in season, so:

What to do - Eat Seasonally (and Locally)

1. Bundle up and go to the farmer's market. The selection is more sparse than during the summer, but you'll quickly see what's in season and you'll be able to buy the freshest. Besides, this is when your local farmers need the most support. They get a lot less traffic and they're cold too.
2. Use this great site from Natural Resources Defense Council and check out what's in season.
3. Learn how to cook root vegetables and meat. Most any winter food can be roasted or turned into stew. Your slow cooker is perfect for this season, and we roast veggies at least once a week.
4. If you're in the NYC or SF area, buy this clever and beautifully illustrated Local Foods Wheel from Chelsea Green to always see what's in season. It makes a great gift too! It was our favorite item in a gift bag.

What I ate: City Bakery hot chocolate shot, 1 cup plain yogurt + 1T Sarabeth's peach-strawberry jam + flaxseeds, 1 cup McCann's steel-cut oatmeal + dried cranberries + ground flax seeds, cheddar cheese, macadamia nuts, 1 grapefruit, 1 large latte, 1 cup tea, Trader Joe's dried mangos, Tazo white apricot tea, whole wheat fusilli, roasted eggplant + portobello mushrooms + parsnips + turnips, hot chocolate, New Chapter multivitamin, water

Exercise: 30 min run, 60 min yoga

Hassle-Free Healthy Meal: Slow Cooker/Crockpot

Collard green and turnip soup

My parents gave me a slow cooker for Christmas last year. I thought it was an odd gift, but I sweetly thanked them and took it home. Then I took the slow cooker out of the box and fell in love. 

The thing is magic! You load it up, add water, turn it on, and when you come home 9+ hours later on a frigid night so hungry you could eat your dog, the warm smell of love hits you as you walk through the door. It's the only way a working stiff like me can come home to a delicious smelling dinner. And the only effort required is chopping and flipping a switch. Magic. Parents (often) do know best.

The magic isn't limited to meals - the slow cooker is great way to prepare slow foods like dried beans and lentils, or carrots on their way to being pureed. 

Slow cookers are especially perfect during the winter. They're great for soups, chili and stews. I also understand they are great for braised meat (next on my list of things to try), but the most frequent meal in my slow-cooker is a turnip collard green soup.

In addition to slow cookers, there are a few other ways to cook healthy and fast.

Turnip and Collard Green Soup

Serves 2

5-6 small turnips
5 collard greens
1 stalk of celery
1 carrot
1/4 clove of garlic
 1/2 barley, quinoa, brown rice or any other grain
 water
 any other vegetable you like - onions, potatoes, etc.

1. Chop the turnips, celery and carrots into bite sized soup pieces. Turnips should be small (2 inches or less) and heavy.
2. Strip the collard green stems off the leaves and slice leaves into strips. (collard stems can be saved for vegetable juice)
3. Put all the vegetables into the slow cooker.
4. Add enough water to cover the vegetables plus another 2-3 inches. Unless the water is 3/4 inches from the top of the cooker. If so, only fill it until it's 3/4 inch from the top.
5. Turn cooker on low. Let cook for 5+ hours. I've let it cook for over 9 hours.
6. When you're ready to eat, add the grains. Leave them in for the regular cooking time. If you have pre-cooked grains, add them in at the end. Do NOT cook grains for hours - they get overcooked, clumpy and gross.

You're done! One of the easiest meals ever. Feel free to experiment - slow cooking is flexible and nearly impossible to screw up.

What I ate: vegetable juice, 1 grapefruit, 1 c. steel-cut oatmeal + flaxseeds + dried cranberries + milk, 2 scrambled eggs, macadamia nuts, 1 latte, baby carrots, hummus, 1 green tea, lobster ravioli, salami, prosciutto, 2 slices bread, cheese, hot chocolate, water

Exercise: None

What is Conventionally-Grown, Industrial Food?

Grocery shopping in Aleppo, Syria. 

Our lives are a sum total of the choices we have made. ~William Dyer

Have you ever noticed that hippies, yuppies and environmental folk love farmer's markets and sustainably grown, organic food? What's up with that? Is it better for you? And why are people making such a fuss over conventional, industrially grown food? Read on for most of the answers...

If MindfulEats were to draw a bright line in the world of food, the first and most important cut would be between processed and non-processed foods. Eating non-processed food is the best thing you can do for you and those you love. But you already knew that.

The second cut would be within the non-processed food world, between 1) conventional, industrially grown food and 2) locally, sustainably grown food. 

Conventional, industrially grown food is quickly becoming the villain in movies and popular press. But like processed food, the reason it came into being wasn't to be evil - the idea was to make farming more efficient to provide more and cheaper food for everyone. Not a bad idea. It's the actual production and execution that is the problem.

To understand the issue, let's take a look at the way food has traditionally been grown. Food (plant and animal) is grown on land. Like you, land gets tired and less productive when it is worked hard and without rest (which is what farming does). Different plants take different nutrients from the soil, and leave different types of waste. The traditional farmer had to be smart about raising multiple types of crops so he didn't strip the soil of all nutrients, and leave himself with dead fields in a few years. He also had to rest plots of land so the soil could enrich itself. 

Likewise, he had to grow different animals to be efficient. Cows would graze on grass and poop in the fields. Chickens would peck through the poop for food, scattering the manure for more efficient fertilizer as they pecked. Pigs ate leftovers and rooted through fields, helping to aerate the soil and creating more poop for chickens to peck through. Farms were an ecosystem of their own, growing food for the farmer and a few others, and being carefully managed so the farm would exist for generations.

Industrialization came along and decided traditional farms were inefficient. Like factories, industrialists thought they could increase production. Instead of planting different kinds of crops, they thought they'd just plant one type (corn, for example) on a large tract and be super efficient about it. They added chemical fertilizers to make the crops grow faster, and herbicides/insecticides to reduce pests. The problem is, the chemicals and just the one crop stripped the soil of its nutrients, so even more chemicals had to be added to make the same land grow as much. This creates a huge environmental problem with all the chemicals, and lots of people don't want to eat those chemicals. It's gross. Enter the growing demand for organic, unchemically grown food.

Meat production went through the same process. Industrial farmers figured they could produce more meat if they raised mass amounts of one type of animal. So each farm focuses on one type - beef, pork, chicken, etc. To grow more meat, they jam as many animals as possible on a plot of land. This means the animals don't have room to exercise, stand around in lots of poop, and are prone to getting sick (that's what happens with poor quality food and lack of exercise). Since they are so close to each other, disease sweeps through quickly. Hello antibiotics. To counteract potential disease, 70% of the antibiotics produced in the U.S. is fed to animals, as stated by Congresswoman Louise Slaughter in her statement to the Agriculture Subcommittee. So when you eat industrial meat, you are eating sickly animals that are filled with artificial hormones and antibiotics so they will grow more quickly and not get diseased. All those drugs and waste leach into the environment and water supply, which causes a big environmental issue that will have to get cleaned up some day.

Sure, cooking helps kill the additives, but that animal you're eating is pretty sickly and unhappy. Yuck. It's bad karma. Pigs are smarter than dogs, and those industrially grown pigs get so depressed they put antidepressants in their feed along with antibiotics. If you took two kids, and raised one so that he played outdoors and ate healthy food, he'd have a good shot at being happy and hale. If you forced the other kid to spend all his time in a closet eating nothing but cereal, you'd have a kid with lots of issues. That's industrial farming.

So the theory behind industrial farming isn't a bad one, but the practice of it is terrible in terms of:

1. the environment - a massive amount of chemicals and waste is being offloaded into the environment, without any kind of replenishing
2. your health - you and your family get lots more chemicals into your food, and you eat sickly depressed animals. It hasn't been proven to be harmful yet, but do you really want to wait for that proof?

That's why people like farmer's markets - it provides a direct connection to food grown the traditional, sustainable way, as do responsible retailers and grocery stores.

What to do - Eat Sustainably

1. Eat less processed food.
2. Buy organic and locally produced food if you have the means. You're getting a bigger bang for your buck than you are when you spend your moolah on designer clothes.
3. Ask your restaurants about their food, and patronize the ones that buy responsibly.
4. Share your philosophy with others.

Want to learn more?

• Watch the movie Food, Inc.
• Read Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma
• Read Congresswoman Louise Slaughter's Statement On Agriculture Subcommittee Hearing on Animal Health, Antibiotics

For articles on SOLE (sustainable, organic, local, ethical) food, go to Food Renegade.

What I ate: macadamia nuts, large latte, 3 clementines, 1 banana, dried mangos, cheese, baby carrots, babaganoush, whole wheat spaghetti, roasted eggplant + portobello mushrooms + zucchini + yellow squash + grape tomatoes, 2 cups hot chocolate, water

Exercise: 90 min. vinyassa yoga, 30 min. lifting

Food Portions and Serving Sizes

 Peppers at a Green Bay Farmer's Market ©Michelle Correa Photography

Your body is the baggage you must carry through life. The more excess the baggage, the shorter the trip. ~Arnold H. Glasgow

I have a colleague that's frustrated with her diet. She started eating healthier, but she still wants to lose 10 pounds. Sometimes that happens. Getting rid of processed foods is a fabulous start for losing weight, but you still need to be mindful of how much food you're eating. Learning serving sizes will also help you keep a better food log, which is key to weight loss.

American portions keep getting supersized. You can blow a whole day's worth of calories on a restaurant meal. If you want to lose weight, you need to know what a proper serving looks like, so check out the MindfulEats Food Portion Chart below (based on this SparkPeople article). It's shocking how much smaller a portion should be than what we're used to.

Just so you know - a serving is the amount that food experts recommend you eat, and a portion is what you actually eat. For example, experts recommend that you eat 6-11 servings of grains per day. So if you don't snack on grains, you may want to eat two servings per meal.

MindfulEats Food Portion Chart

 
 

American PLATES are also getting bigger, which sneaks in more calories. Use a smaller luncheon size plate (9"-10") for your dinner, and fill it with 1/2 veggies, 1/4 whole grains and 1/4 protein. If you need a visual reminder, you can buy a portion-control plate here, or one of the more stylish plates featured on the Today Show.

What to do - Lose Weight through Proper Portions

1. Memorize serving sizes. Or print out the above chart, cut it out, and put it in your wallet for easy referral.
2. Pack away your dinner plates and only use luncheon plates (9"-10"). Make sure your plate is filled with 50% veggie/fruit, 25% whole grains, and 25% protein.
3. Stick to recommended serving sizes. It's great you're eating healthier, but that doesn't mean you can eat massive amounts!
4. Throw away extra food, or wrap it up for later. We're giving you permission not to clean your plates. You didn't ask for that huge portion, did you? Eat a healthy portion and leave the rest, or have it wrapped. You're also probably getting a lot of cookies, chocolates and sweets for the holidays. We give you permission to eat one and throw the rest away (don't worry, they'll never know).
5. Look at what 300-450 calorie meals look like.
6. Check out the Cool Resources page for more ideas.

Want to learn more?

• SparkPeople article on Portion Sizes and Serving Sizes
• Web MD's Portion Tool and Simple Secrets to Portion Control and Healthy Eating
• How to Lose Weight

What I ate: (horrible day of holiday parties) 1/2 c. couscous, 1 small potato pancake, lox, smoked trout, food, mixed nuts, 1 slice ham, shrimp cocktail, lots of cheese and crackers, 1 small crab cake, carrots + hummus, whole wheat spaghetti + egg + spinach, 1 hot chocolate, water

Exercise: 15 min stationary bike, weights

What is Processed Food?

 I made this bread from scratch - is it a processed food? 

Truth never damages a cause that is just. ~Mohandas K. Gandhi

So what is processed food anyway? Processed food is any food that has been altered from its natural state. As soon as it is altered (processed) in any way (no longer fresh and raw), it starts to lose nutrients. The more processed, the less nutrients it has. This doesn't mean that you should eat only raw food (that takes a lot of effort and dedication), but it does mean you should focus on eating raw or simply cooked whole foods. 

The chart below describes the spectrum of foods. It goes from the least processed from the top box most processed (and worst) in the red box. You want most of your food to be from the green boxes.

 
The best food is still in its natural, recognizable form. Raw or steamed spinach is good (raw is better since cooking destroys some nutrients). Creamed spinach - not so good. Though cooking does destroy nutrients, it doesn't mean all cooking is bad. Certain things, like tomatoes, actually increase in lycopene (important nutrient for your eyes) when cooked. So don't obsess over cooking.

Wheat does not grow naturally in bread or pasta form. That is always processed, even if it is whole wheat! My cousin questioned whether homemade bread was processed. The answer is yes. Flour is milled, ground up wheat.

What about frozen or canned vegetables? Not bad - just make sure it doesn't have sweeteners, additives or chemicals, it is a fine way to get your vegetables. Back in the day, it was the only way to get any fruit and vegetables during the winter.

Of course, you can't avoid all processed foods. Just try to consistently eat the majority of your food from the green bars and try to avoid the red. Does it seem overwhelming? It's not! You can do it. Start with 50%, then when you are comfortable there, bring it up to 60%. Keep going - you might hit 90-95%.

What to do - Eat Less Processed Food

1. Understand what processed food is. Read the chart above.
2. Eat more whole foods. Stick to the green and yellow boxes.
3. Always read your food labels so you know how processed that food is. 
4. Cook more of your own food. It's healthier, easy, and cheaper.

For more articles on real unprocessed food, go to Food Renegade's Fightback Friday.

What I ate: plain kefir, Barbara's Bakery Shredded Oats + skim milk, 2 squares dark chocolate, walnuts, spinach + mesclun salad + roasted beets + green beans + baked tofu + felafel + Asian noodles + red rice + barley + cucumbers, 1 potato chip, 12 oz. cafe au lait, 12 oz. coffee, 1 madeleine, 3 dried apricots, 1 medium apple, carrots + hummus, whole wheat spaghetti + spinach + Rao's Siciliana sauce + parmesan cheese, 1/4 roasted sweet potato, hot chocolate, white tea, 1 T. Udo's Oil, 1 multivitamin, 60 oz. water

Exercise: 15 min stationary bike, weights

Healthy Bones and Osteoporosis

We are delighted to welcome back Brandi Simpson, who wrote the popular post on her week-long raw food diet experience. This time she is sharing her vast knowledge on osteoporosis. I met Brandi when we were consulting for a pharmaceutical firm. She worked on their osteoporosis drug, and has since worked extensively in the area. I learned a lot of things from this post - I had no idea that my food goes into my bones!

It’s easy to get caught up in thinking about how what we eat today makes us feel and look now. And I know you mindful eaters are concerned about eating your fruits and vegetables to stave off cancer, diabetes, heart disease and other conditions associated with aging. But have you given much thought to your bones lately?

Just like every other system in your body, your bones cells are constantly turning over. Surprisingly, the cells that make up your skeleton today will be no where to be found five or six years from now. This is because about 20% of the cells of your skeleton turn over each year. A little sobering when you consider the four years in college (before you became a mindful eater) when maybe you lived on coffee, beer, and cheese puffs. Those four years contributed to most of the skeleton you had at 23! It’s a wonder you didn’t break a hip!

This isn’t to say that if your diet remains unchanged your bones remodel every 5 or so years to the same state they were in 5 years earlier. In fact, about 80-90% of your adult bone mass was acquired by age 20. After age 20, the real battle becomes trying to maintain the bone mass that you have. This is actually challenging as we tend to lose bone mass as we age and our habits (as well as our genetics) make a big difference.

It probably didn’t strike you until a few years after you started growing. But every time you gave grandma/grandpa/great aunt Edna a hug you noticed that they seemed to be shrinking. They probably were! Long before osteoporosis causes broken hips (which, by the way can even lead to death) it causes vertebral fractures. In fact, many physicians believe that vertebral fracture should be suspected in any woman over 45 experiencing back pain. Over 25% of post menopausal women have at least one vertebral fracture. Over time, osteoporosis causes the vertebra to fracture and compress, resulting in loss of height, loss of spinal mobility, and significant pain.

But can’t they cure osteoporosis these days? No! Some drugs can slow the re-absorption process, but they do so at the cost of long term bone remodeling. In fact, the seller of the world’s most successful osteoporosis drug, Merck, is currently facing several court cases because it is believed that its therapy can cause osteonecrosis (that is, bone death), most commonly in the jaw. There are other therapies that have been shown to improve bone mass and reduce fracture risk - but these drugs also have a lot of risks.  If someone has severe osteoporosis, they really have no choice but to either accept the risk of fracture or the side effects that come with the therapies. But you are far from that decision. Act now to save your skeleton!

What can you do?

• Eat a diet high in calcium and vitamin D.  These nutrients aren’t found exclusively in dairy products.  Dark leafy greens are excellent sources of calcium.  Fatty fish and eggs are good sources of vitamin D. 
• Avoid smoking and excessive alcohol (yup - these affect your bone mass along with everything else).
• Do weight bearing exercise!  Running and jumping are actually great for your bones!  Do it before your knees can’t take it!  Weight lifting positively affects your bone mass too.  So if lifting your suitcase to get it into the overhead bin isn’t enough - now you can do it for your bones!
• Know your risks:  non-Hispanic Caucasian and Asian women have higher risks as do smokers (stop that!), those with small frames, and individuals who have taken corticosteroids for long periods of time (like those with asthma.) 

What I ate: Kashi Go Lean cereal, Fage 2% Greek yogurt, nectarine; salad with mixed greens, hard-boiled egg,  beets, olives, red peppers, and balsamic dressing; 1.5 oz of pretzels (I know, I know); 2 clementines; homemade chicken noodle soup with organic chicken and homemade noodles; 1 fruit juice sweetened Cascade farms yogurt.

Exercise: 40 minutes on elliptical, 10 minutes hard running at 5% incline

Save Money by Eating Healthy

Union Square Greenmarket

A healthy body is a guest-chamber for the soul; a sick body is a prison. ~Francis Bacon

Let's talk about money and getting you more of it. There's an awful lot of buzz around health insurance these days. But better insurance is not going to help U.S. health issues if people are going to continue eating a processed diet, as Michael Pollan points out in a great op-ed. It's true!

A processed diet provides calories stripped of nutrition. Good deal? Not! This kind of diet can lead to obesity and fatigue, which can then contribute to and exacerbate health problems. Not only will you look bad, you'll feel bad.

You need a good diet (whole foods) to be at your healthiest. It may seem like it costs more, but it saves you lots. You're getting more nutrition per pound, and you are saving yourself healthcare costs in the long run. Being unhealthy costs nearly 300% more in healthcare costs per year. Type II diabetes costs $6,600+ annually, or $400K+ in a lifetime.

But you knew that, didn't you smartie? That's why you're here to begin with - to get healthier, get happier and save money.  

Here's a mindful refresher:

• How to get healthier: the Mindful Eats Map
• Kick off the mindful revolution and why to pay up for your food (cause it's worth it)
• Get in your exercise

What I ate: 50 oz. Gatorade, Yogi Goji cereal + milk, macadamia nuts, 1 hard boiled egg, bagel + lox + Snofrisk, 1 plum chicken, latte, linguini + Rao's Siciliana, cheddar cheese, moon cake, hot chocolate, Union Square Cafe: carpaccio + artichoke + rocket, papardelle + wild mushrooms, broccoli rabe, 50 oz. water

Exercise: 1/2 marathon (really horrible and disappointing, argh - the marathon is in trouble)

Mission Accomplished: Eating Breakfast

Weekday breakfast: latte, plain yogurt +ground flaxseeds +strawberries, When Pigs fly whole wheat bread +butter, hard-boiled egg

Victory belongs to the most persevering. ~Napoleon

I did it! I ate breakfast for the last four months. Mornings are a huge rush for me - I work out, read the papers, do last minute cleaning and run out the door for work. The only breakfast I had was coffee at my desk. If you're sheparding kids to school, it's even more chaotic!

Writing on the importance of breakfast prompted me to commit to eating it. All the research indicates it supercharges your day. I'm not sure that breakfast supercharges my day (I'm also not sure it doesn't), but it definitely made a positive difference:

• It saves time: I used to snack desperately during the morning before lunch, and I'd start snacking ravenously again at 3pm for a couple hours. Looking for all that food took a lot of time! Now I only need one morning snack and one afternoon snack.
• I eat less. The volume of snacking went down, and also the amount I eat for lunch and dinner. It probably has something to do with evening out glucose levels. This also helps if you are trying to lose weight.

It makes enough of a difference that I'm going to keep eating it. Since I'm always running late in the morning, the key to breakfast is having easy breakfast food around. Protein keeps me fuller longer, so I make an effort to include it. I try to stock my refrigerator with the below list, and start the day with 1-2 of the items:

• Tub of plain yogurt: Spoon out a bowl and add flax seeds and fruit (or a tablespoon of jam if you're in a hurry)
• Cottage cheese: same as the yogurt
• Sugarfree cereal + milk: Barbara's Bakery or Kashi are great
• Hardboiled eggs: these travel well if you have to dash
• Whole wheat bread: this also travels with you
• Fruit
• Nuts

For all you non-breakfast eaters, try it for a few weeks and see what you think.

What to do: Eat Breakfast

1. Read the post on breakfast
2. Figure out what easy breakfast foods work for you, and stock up on them. 
3. Eat breakfast daily, and see if it makes a difference for you

Of course, lingering over breakfast/brunch is an occasional treat. My friend Jon is in Ireland, and he sent in a picture of his recent Irish breakfast. The eggs and the beans are healthy, but we wouldn't recommend this as a regular occurrance (unless you're a professional athlete or do a lot of manual labor). 

Ingredients: free range eggs, rashers, sausages, black (blood) pudding, white pudding, potato bread, toast, and thimble of orange juice.

What I ate: yogurt + ground flaxseeds + strawberries, latte, 2 hard boiled eggs, brown rice + seaweed, cajun fries (Labor Day celebration), Pirates Booty, Mindful Mix, 1 black plum, chicken, salmon, fava beans, Greek yogurt + strawberries, 1 peach, 12 oz. kefir, milk, water

Exercise: easy 5 mile run, a little lifting (very little)

Study says organic food is not healthier

 Bowl of rainier cherries - good for you and one of the dirty dozen in terms of pesticides

Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in their readiness to doubt. ~H.L. Mencken

A recent U.K. review on organic food studies concluded that organic food is not more nutritious than conventionally grown food. People are in an uproar! Bloggers are freaking out! Calm down folks, it's ok. MindfulEats is not surprised by the results, nor do we think it's the end of the earth. We actually think the review is awesome, because there's a lack of solid research in this area. Let's break it down:

First, let's look at the study. It's actually a review of studies by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine that was published by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition July 2009. The goal was to try to determine whether there's a difference in nutrient quantity between organic and conventionally grown foods (produce and livestock.) To figure this out, the team found 52,471 articles on the topic in a 50 year period from 1958-2008. They then slogged through them and found 162 actual studies, of which only 55 were deemed satisfactory quality. How cool is that? A smart group of people looked at all the existing studies they could find, figured out what was good, then combed through it for conclusions. Awesome.

What did they determine? From the studies they looked at. there was no significant difference between nutrients in conventionally grown and organically grown foods. Nutrients are things like Vitamin A, B, and C. The important thing to remember is that they weren't looking at other items like antioxidents or toxins.

Bottom Line - if you are feeding you and those you love whole foods, no matter how they are grown, you are doing a great job. Pat yourself on the back. Whole foods have much more nutrition than processed food, any day of the year.

If you can afford a little more and buy organic food, that's even better. There are some foods (like spinach) that have higher concentrations of nutrients like iron, but what you are really buying is food that is pesticide free. Organic food is grown without chemicals, so it takes much more manual effort and provides less yield. That is why it is more expensive. Some evidence suggests that organically grown food has more antioxidents. Even though studies have not (yet) demonstrated that pesticides can harm you, why bother waiting? You get enough toxins in your daily life (pollution, car fumes, furniture), why consciously add more? And you are taking care of the environment.

What to do

1. Eat more whole foods. It's always cheaper and better for you than processed.
2. If you can afford organic, do so. If you are buying only part of your food organic, focus on meat, dairy, then the dirty dozen produce items.

Want to learn more?

• The review by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
• MindfulEats: The Low-Down on Organics
• Refuting the study: Beyond Pesticides and the Huffington Post

What I ate: 14 oz. vegetable juice, 2 hard boiled eggs, 10 oz. kefir, 1 banana, whole wheat spaghetti + basil + tomatoes + olive oil + garlic + spinach, 1 slice cheese pizza, 1 slice chocolate cake, 1 Gatorade, 3 slices Flying Pigs smoked tenderloin, macadamia nuts, Dale & Thomas movie popcorn, 1 cucumber, blueberries, cherries, 16 oz. milk, 50 oz. water

Exercise: 1.5 mile warmup, 5x 800m w 200 m recovery, 1.5 mile cool down

Hydrate Naturally with Coconut Water and its Benefits

Coconut water lineup: Zico, Vita Coco, ONE, and a real nut

There is sweet water inside a tender coconut. Who poured the water inside the coconut? Was it the work of any man? No. Only the Divine can do such a thing. ~Sri Sathya Sai Baba

Coconuts are fun. We can't see one without thinking of the tropics, and it's odd to think that it's just a huge seed. Everything about a coconut is useful, but one of our favorite parts is coconut water (which occurs naturally in young coconuts). It looks slightly cloudy, and it doesn't really have a coconut flavor. It's mild, slightly sweet, and best drunk chilled. It's delicious and thirst-quenching.

Coconut water is touted as a natural sports drink full of benefits. It's certainly natural - all you have to do is smack a baby coconut. Proponents say that it is chock-full of electrolytes and potassium, and hydrates you quickly after exercise and excessive partying. We've been drinking it for over a year now, and it's our preferred post-run sports drink when marathon training. Does it work better than other drinks? We don't know, but we like the fact that there's no artificial chemicals or sweeteners in it. So let's compare it to Gatorade, shall we?

One serving of Zico Coconut Water vs. one serving of Gatorade Fierce (since it sounds hardcore):

• Calories: 60 to coconut, 50 to Fierce
• Sodium: 60mg to coconut, 110mg to Fierce
• Potassium: 670mg to coconut, 30mg to Fierce (more in coconut water than a banana)
• Total Carbohydrate: 15mg to coconut, 14mg to Fierce
• Sugars: 14mg to coconut, 14mg to Fierce

They both work post-exercise, but since you are now anti-processed food (a fluorescent sports drink counts as processed), you should give the nod to the coconut water.

You don't actually have to crack open a coconut to get to the water. You can just open an increasingly prevalent Tetrapak. Happily, there are an increasing number of brands on the shelf - Zico, Vita Coco, and ONE are some of them, and they are all good. If you don't like taste of coconut water, there are additional flavors like mango and passionfruit. We like it straight-up best. Our absolute favorite is water from a fresh young coconut. Sip it through a straw, and scoop up the coconut jelly after you're done.

What to do

1. Try coconut water - there are several brands and "flavors". Find one that you like. Or go to a natural food store that sells whole young coconuts, and have them open one up for you.
2. Hydrate. It's not processed like fruit juice, and comes loaded with potassium. It's not a water replacement (for those counting calories, there are 60 calories), but it's a good hydrator, particularly post-exercise or during hangover.
3. Recycle the Tetrapak - some communities like NYC recycle (check to see if yours does here), otherwise you can mail them back.

What I ate: vegetable juice, cottage cheese + blueberries + 3 strawberries, shell peas, whole wheat spaghetti + tomatoes + garlic + basil, 8 squares dark chocolate, 1 cup coffee, 1 pretzel, 1 cup Rainier cherries, strawberries, blueberries, raw kale salad, roasted turkey, 60 oz. water, Mindful Mix

Exercise: 65 min. vinyassa yoga